A-Z of Lifelong Learning by Jonathan Tummons

Author:Jonathan Tummons
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780335263257
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Learning

There are many different definitions of learning, definitions that are informed by psychology, social psychology, anthropology and neuroscience. The use of additional prefixes – adult learning, informal learning, experiential learning, reflective learning – makes coming to an unambiguous definition yet more complicated. Dictionaries provide a general, if superficial start: ‘knowledge acquired by study’ is a typical dictionary definition. An analysis of the different definitions offered by educational researchers and writers would bring up many more, more or less different, definitions. Nonetheless, running through the many definitions that are present in the extant literature are a number of key themes, which in turn can be seen to influence pedagogic practice:

Learning is inferred from changes in behaviour. Changes in behaviour might refer to how someone performs or discusses a particular task or how someone writes or talks about a particular body of knowledge. Assessment is the most conspicuous element of pedagogic practice through which these changes might be inferred.

Learning occurs as the result of given experiences that precede changes in behaviour. Within the context of the lifelong learning sector, the kinds of experience that would precede changes in behaviour (and, therefore, learning) would include formal teaching sessions, coaching, work-based learning, tuition and so forth.

Learning involves behaviour potentiality – that is, the capacity to perform some act at a future time, to be able to repeat something, as contrasted with performance that concerns the translation of potentiality into behaviour. Different theories of learning all share a concern to predict future capacity for performance. Ideas such as ‘practice’, ‘repetition’, and ‘reinforcement’ all revolve around the issue of how a change in behaviour can be understood as being more than a ‘one-off’.

The modification of behaviour involved in learning is of a relatively permanent nature. Common sense tells us that people forget things over time – in part due to the ageing process, but also due to forgetting as a result of not practising or reinforcing. The prevalence of ‘refresher’ courses, on the one hand, and of ‘continuing professional development’ courses, on the other, are examples of educational provision that assume that without regular reinforcement or practice, knowledge, competencies, and skills can be forgotten.

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